


Blake Down

by executrix



Category: Blakes7
Genre: AU, Aliens Made Them Do It, Body-swap, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-05-11
Updated: 2011-05-11
Packaged: 2017-10-19 06:16:49
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,354
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/197860
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/executrix/pseuds/executrix
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Assuming that "Ultraworld" was actually an episode tag for "Horizon"...</p>
            </blockquote>





	Blake Down

1.  
They all stared down at Travis, writhing in his bonds within the fishnet.

Ushton kicked him a couple of times, got out of breath, and wandered away.

"We'd best get on," Blake said. "Avon, that arm of yours needs seeing to."

"What about him? Aren't you going to kill him?" Vila said.

"Oh, no," Blake said. "I wouldn't kill Travis right now for all the tea in China. I need him." {{And God help me, what I need him for.}}

2.  
Travis thought it was a mortal insult to have nothing to complain about. The murderous rabble hadn't torn him to bits. He hadn't been tortured. He hadn't been interrogated. In fact, once he was bundled into a cell and the Lazeron trigger ring removed, he had been completely ignored, apart from regular delivery of meals and occasional delivery of clean sheets and coveralls through the judas door. He supposed that if he wanted to make a Federated case of it, he could decry the inhumanity of solitary confinement.

But he didn't really feel like complaining. The food was heavily laced with tranquilizers. For a day or so he fastidiously avoided it, prowling his cell. Then he decided that he preferred being full and tranquil to being hungry and agitated. After all, his professional career was premised on asserting the superiority of the former to the latter.

3.  
"Purely as a matter of idle curiosity, where are we going?" Avon asked, throwing a bookplaque against the wall. The author of the thriller he was reading had just described a mere flesh wound in the arm as a trivial injury.

"An alien installation on an artificial planet," Blake said. "They've got some highly sophisticated brain-printing and psychomanipulation techniques."

"Oh, Blake, don't tell me that you're going to have them turn Travis into a good little rebel?"

"Well, yes," Blake said. "Only not in the way you mean. Right, who wants a drink? I'll put the kettle on."

Cally and Avon exchanged glances--it was a slight advance on the pre-Atomic quip 'Shut up,' he explained" but only a slight one.

"I'll have a cup," Cally said. "Ta!"

4.  
"You must come in person, and bring a small party of your followers--as well as the subject--for our assessment," Blake's trading partner said.

Blake disliked being dictated to, but he had to agree because the other had something that he vitally needed.

"Yourself and five others," came the voice over the link.

"But..." {{there are only five others}} Blake started to say, then hurriedly shut up because that would expose his vulnerability and make it easy to wrest the undefended Liberator out of his possession. "...everyone wants to see your installation, it's famous," Blake said in a honeyed tone. "A hollowed-out planet that's just one giant brain..."

"Yourself and five others," the negotiator repeated.

{{Oh, what the hell}} Blake thought. {{That wretched little steamer trunk can operate the teleport.}}

5.  
"Will they do it?" Cally asked.

"They'll be well paid," Blake said. "And it's an obvious development of things they do already, on their own account. They've no love for the Federation, so I think their silence can be bought."

"I'm only an accidental pacifist," Gan said, "Sometimes the only way to defend what you believe in, is to kill. But isn't there a line to be drawn, between 'war' and 'murder'?"

"Not to the dead'uns, mate," Vila said. "I mean, the bloke who cops a packet when we blow up a military base might have raped a whole creche on his tea break, or he might have a picture of his wife in his pocket and do cross-stitch embroidery and his crippled son might have to sell matches on the street after his Dad snuffs it."

"I'm not that comfortable with the manner," Cally said. "But I admire the daring of Blake's plan, and how quickly he adapted to the implications of capturing Travis. And it's a legitimate military objective, and the chance of collateral damage is nearly nil."

"I've seen historical simulations," Blake said. "There might never have been mass racial killings in the twentieth century if the plot to eliminate the Nazi high command had succeeded."

"I hardly think that's true," Avon said. "If there had been a decent nation--or a decent human race! victimized by a small band of monsters--then the recruitment process for torturers and extermination camp guards would have been met by incredulous laughter instead of inquiries about working hours and superannuation benefits. And, to get away from these thrilling war games and back to the subject at hand, although what you always and unthinkingly demand of your crew is excessive, what you're proposing to do is an insane risk."

"That's what you say about everything," Blake said, "I've built up antibodies. And I'm the one taking the risk. So belt up."

Avon actually did, to Blake's surprise. {{It's the eyes}} Avon thought. {{When you kill someone face-to-face. I don't want you to have to see the....whatever...vanish, and be replaced by nothingness.}}

6.  
Blake opened the magnesium briefcase, and threw a handful of credit disks onto the countertop. It didn't make much of a dent in the contents--liberally larded with jewels from the Treasure Room.

"Take him to the sleep cell," one of the blue men said, prodding Travis' pinioned, unconscious body lightly with his toe. He turned his attention toward Blake. "But that's not quite all."

"It's all there," Blake said. "Count it if you like."

"In addition to the arrangements already made, we require the Human Bonding Ceremony."

"Now, see here...." Blake began.

"Obviously, you are a mere commercial agent, and the scope of your powers has been reached in submitting the payment to us. It is clear that this magnificent specimen is the dominant male in your social group," the Ultra said, clapping Gan on the shoulder.

"Quite," Avon said. "My people have a saying, 'Why deal with the monkey when the organ grinder is in the room?'"

Vila sedulously maintained his Don't Volunteer policy.

Gan's lover glanced up anxiously. "If we submit to this travesty--and naturally that has not yet been decided--then I should be the one to undergo the ordeal with him."

"That is not acceptable," said the other Ultra. "We are already fully informed on the subject of Auron cloning techniques. We require the human bonding ceremony."

The first Ultra's glance flicked between Jenna and Cally. "It is regrettable that you do not have prime Bonding stock at your disposal. Our photographic research record shows that Bonding is optimally performed with very tall, very thin females with highly developed breasts, symmetrical features, and light-colored hair. The Auron female is moderately tall and very thin but does not possess highly developed breasts. The human female unites the features of symmetry, hair color, and pectoral development but is not tall and is only comparatively slender."

{{You've got to cut your coat to fit your cloth}} Blake thought. "That's a good point," he said. "So why don't you just take the money and do the deal the way we said?"

"That is not acceptable," the Ultra said.

"Let's just up stakes and out of here," Jenna said, turning to Cally for confirmation. She raised her bracelet to her lips.

"No!" Blake said. He turned back to his crew. "It's not what I intended, but we've got to see this through. Look, if this works, then we'll win, we'll win soon, and it'll be a clean victory. And the chance of that is worth everything. I'll make this up to you."

"Which one of them gets the hazard pay?" Vila asked. "If it's Gan, I'll do it for half."

7.  
"I need a level," the camera operator said.

"Ah, talking is not a very prominent feature..." Gan started to say.

The camera operator clicked his tongue in annoyance. "Don't give me that, I'm not so blue as I'm cabbage-looking, I've seen the vizcasts."

"Oh, oh, big boy, put it in me," Jenna recited, with much the same inflection she would have used for "At the tone, the time will be eight fourteen and fifteen seconds." "Do it to me. Fuck me with your big hot cock."

Gan gazed at her, horrified. "Daintily put," she whispered to him. "I suppose it's the company I keep."

"That'll do," the director said. "Right, how're the lights?"

"We're just checking to see if the wiring will handle the brute..." the best boy said. He gazed at Gan apprehensively. "Not you, mate, it's a great huge fucking light."

"Sweets for the sweet," the second-second said. Gan smiled.

"Dammit, you're enjoying this," Jenna whispered.

"I'd be a fool to deny it with the evidence right in front of you," Gan said. "Look, I'll try my best to make this enjoyable for you too, but I have to admit the awkwardness of the situation."

"It's just fifteen minutes till tea-break," said the continuity supervisor, who was also the shop steward. "Are we going to get anything down before then?"

"Audio?" the Director asked.

"Audio."

"Lights?"

"Lights."

"Roll tape?"

"Rolling."

The Director turned toward the flimsy cot, failing to notice that there was a boom shadow in the viewfinder. "Action!"

"Well, it's not your clockweights Cally'll be after with the garden shears once this is over," Gan said mournfully, picking up Jenna's hand for a gentle kiss.

8.  
The other four crewmembers sat in the cafeteria. Avon lifted a fork to his mouth just as Vila prodded at the glutinous mass on his plate and said, "Dunno what this is, I'm just hoping it didn't used to have fingernails."

Avon put down his fork. "I suppose that soon enough we'll either be back on the Liberator and able to prepare a more palatable meal--or at least a meal of known quantities, in that I believe it's your shift tonight, Vila--or it won't matter if we died a bit peckish."

Blake patted Cally's hand. "I'm sorry," he said. "In the course of war, some very distasteful choices get forced on us. I'd no idea, it was supposed to be a simple cash deal."

{{Men!!!!}}

"I think this experience has made me a better person," Vila said. "Blake, let me know the next time you think Jenna's going to go off, and I'll throw my body in front of Gan."

9.  
Gan walked out of the studio, slightly rumpled and extremely apologetic, gazing down at the floor. Jenna emerged, looking neat and trim, her furious glare nearly burning a hole in Gan's back.

"Is that a wrap?" Ultra #1 called in to the studio.

"Got it," the director said. "Anyway, whatever we didn't, we can fix it in post."

"Very well then," Ultra #1 said. "Now we can proceed with the nucleoplasmic absorption and exchange."

Blake stooped down and put his arms under Travis' armpits. Usually he would have asked Gan to help, but under the circumstances he didn't feel he could. "Vila, get his feet," Blake said.

"What, exactly, are you doing?" Avon asked.

"Dragging him to the Core Room," Blake said.

"How far is it?"

"Dunno," Blake grunted. "Ask him."

"About fifty meters," Ultra #2 said.

Avon looked into the studio and motioned to the crew to clear a stack of film cans off a large dolly. "Man is a tool-using animal," he said. He pushed the dolly back out, laid it down on the floor, and gestured to Vila to roll Travis onto it and wind the elastic bungee cords around him. Vila glared, stepped back, and let Avon assume the handles of the dolly.

Travis stayed sedated, as they propped him up against one side of the information storage and retrieval unit. Blake leaned against the other side of the unit. "Mind they're properly labeled," he said, and surrendered to the cumulative effects of physical and existential exhaustion.

The two cylinders, and the reinstallation unit, fit neatly into Vila's tool box. Orac teleported crew, tool box, and Travis (still suitable for stacking like cordwood--Avon threw them a couple of extra credit disks to pay for the dolly) back to the Liberator.

The Ultras downloaded the Essences to the Core, and made a few extra copies and dispatched them to their strategic partners, the CloneMasters.

10.  
Travis yawned, stood up from the cot in the cell, and dropped down to the floor to do the first (of his daily ten) sets of a hundred pushups. With the Lazeron arm, it was almost too easy, but he didn't have much else to do.

It took a moment to register that he was looking down at his left hand, and that a little bit of lightish brown hair was sprinkled across the back. He was afraid to hope, but he slowly shut his right eye. He could still see.

He scrambled into a sitting position, and pushed the left sleeve of the coverall up over an apparently normal arm, which felt weirdly hot to his touch. He could hear his rasping breath, and the quite mobile fingers of his left hand had sensation and could detect the hammering pulse in his neck. So he must, in some sense, be alive.

In his head, he recited his serial number, his pay number, the numbers of all his ration cards, and ran through the postings of all the units he had served in. He did multiplication tables and remembered all the cadence calls from his long-ago basic training, so he concluded his brain must be more or less intact.

He tested his voice by speaking out loud, and was horrified to hear a rich, musical voice that was quite familiar to him from much-viewed tapes, but from which he had heard only a few unfriendly words in the recent past.

{{It can't be}} Travis thought. {{Oh, they would if they could--cocksuckers!--but how could they?}}

There was a warped bit of stainless steel, say four inches square, over the basin. He crouched down to look into it.

{{How did they?}}

He sat down on the cot to consider his options. {{If thy right eye offend thee pluck it out....Well, I could top myself, that'd spoil whatever precious plan they have in mind. I could do to Blake's body what he did to mine, so we'd be even.}} It occurred to him that they certainly wouldn't be even, because it would be him undergoing the trauma, both times, and the second time he would know the full agony in advance and inflict it on himself.

{{Well, sod that for a game of soldiers.}}

Cally--who was still accruing 19.2% Annual Percentage Rate interest for Centero--opened the door a crack and shot Travis with a tranquilizer dart. He fought the best he could, but that only made the drug spread faster, and he fell heavily on the floor, bruising his forehead.

The bruise provided a very useful benchmark for the Special Effects team.

11.  
The crew stood around the gurney, where the force field emanating from the hoops immobilized Travis' body--or Blake's body, sublet by Travis.

"I saw a play once when I was a kiddie," Vila said. "They got a big effect in the last act, holding up a cut-off head. Dripping, it was. We were all the way up in Delta Heaven, so you could see it was just papier-mache, but lots of girls screamed. My cousin Morleena wet her pants. We could build a head, out of foam and that, and you could walk in there carrying it, that'd make 'em believe that you killed you, and they'd be glad to see you the whole time until you...well, you know. For real."

"Perhaps a film," Gan said, remembering recent past experiences with a shudder. "Something that makes your body look really, really dead."

"Avon, Cally, why don't you work together on it?" Blake said. "Makeup. Special effects--Avon, you can build things, and Cally, you can draw, so there must be something you can come up with."

A couple of hours later, Avon had a very odd expression on his face, as he stood fiddling with the placement of the "heart" supposedly torn out of Blake's chest, before Vila shot a reel of convincingly gory photographs.

"You look like a Cladagh ring," Blake said, looking down at the two hands clasping the detailed styrofoam model. "It's nice when you get to enjoy your work."

12.  
The communications unit built into Travis' uniform listed the date and time of the High Command strategy session at the resort and spa conference center of Asteroid 1-C in the Jabez system. Only six of the Federation's military elite--and one civilian casting vote--had been invited.

Commissar Flaxton, the civilian, was greatly admired for his conciliatory personality and diplomatic skills. Anyway, he was 89 years old and wouldn't be missed much if done away with by the losing voters in a 3-3 split.

In default of fingerprints on one side, and with only one retina to print from, Travis' ID codes were built into the Lazeron ring. Using them, there was no trouble in securing clearance to "land" on Jabez 1-C.

At first Blake worried about fitting into Travis' uniform, but then realized that for the time being, that would not be a problem.

After walking a mile in Travis' shoes, Blake felt no more forgiving than before. It was an enjoyable novelty to stroll bare-faced, with trooper after trooper saluting him instead of trying to kill him.

Blake was admitted to the room where the strategy session was underway. He saluted, and announced sonorously (in the voice Blake could never quite get used to) that the traitor Blake was dead, and here was the proof.

Blake hadn't had time to get the knack of using the prosthetic arm very well, so he used Travis' ordinary hand to pull out the gory images and scatter them across the dais. Pick a card! Any card!

{{Only minutes now}} Blake thought. {{It'll be over, then.}} He didn't want to die and he didn't want to commit cold-blooded murder, but in all probability both of them would happen within minutes. {{Assassination. That's a little more acceptable term for it. I'd give anything--that is, if there was anything left after what I've already given!--to defeat the Federation without violence. But it can't be done, and if someone must die, then let it be the guiltiest and not the most innocent. And, when you look into the Abyss and it looks back at you, I suppose it's as well to be wearing someone else's face.}}

13.  
"It turns me up seeing him like that and knowing it's not him," Vila said. "Is he--Travis--still out cold?"

"I assume he must be, Avon hasn't reported anything in any of the five-minute intervals he goes to check up," Jenna said.

"Gawd, I hope he isn't going to--well, you know, do him an injury."

Jenna stared at Vila open-mouthed, realizing that entire areas of depravity did not cross her radar screen. "Thank you for sharing, Vila."

14.

"So what's my reward?" Blake asked. "The price on his head, promotion to Sub-Supreme Commander, and a seat on this Council?"

Servalan stood up from behind the dais, and walked forward, until the muzzle of the riot gun that Blake unshipped from Travis' belt collided hard with the rhinestone braid around the v-neck of her white gown. "A good imitation, but still an imitation," Servalan said. "You're not Travis....who are you? Are you Blake?"

"Whatever you left of me is," Blake said.

"You want me to die," Servalan said. "But you can't do it yourself. I know you. Travis--or should I say the last inhabitant of that body--told me about you."

"Oh, I can do it, all right," Blake said, knowing he had to hurry yet prolonging the confrontation, longing to taunt her, knowing that the alarms must have been triggered.

He'd have the advantage of a second of surprise when the troopers came in and thought they recognized him. But by then, he'd better have left a row of bodies slumping over the dais, better have pulled the pin from the strontium grenade just to make sure. Then he'd have to shoot his way out, if he could, and call for teleport. {{I'll have to shoot her first}} he thought. {{With any luck at all, the rest of them will just sit there like stuffed dummies--for all they can order slaughters and tortures, they're not quite adepts of the martial arts themselves. So I'll shoot them down, from the left to the right. And it'll be over.}}

He cocked both triggers of the riot gun and screamed "No" as he felt the teleport take him.

15.  
"You've the best hands, Vila, go ahead," Jenna said, staring at the paired screens on the monitor supplied by the Altas.

Vila didn't point out that the manual skills involved were about on a par with plugging in a toaster. He took a quick glance at the monitors--life signs stable. Travis in Blake's body was laid out on the gurney, but soon the deep sedation would wear off, and only a fast-acting relaxant would hold him--the point of maximum danger, if the transfer couldn't be reversed.

Blake in Travis' body, deeply sedated, lay shackled on the floor.

Vila took a deep breath, pulled the red cylinder out of the left side of the monitor, pulled the blue cylinder out of the right side of the monitor, and exchanged them as quickly as he could and still seat the cylinders properly without damaging any of the fittings.

For a moment, lights flashed and sirens howled, then each screen lit up, and a green suffusion began at the lower left hand of the screen and quickly flashed up to the right.

INSTALLATION OF CORE MEMORY STORAGE UNIT COMPLETE flashed at the bottom of the screen, shortly followed by RESTORATION OF NORMAL BRAIN RHYTHMS COMPLETE.

Blake's eyes popped open, and they were observably Blake's eyes. Cally opened the force hoops of the gurney and helped him sit up. "Now, that was....interesting," he said. "A bit like the first time I teleported. You all should probably ask me things that only I'd know to make sure it's really me...but as it's me, I probably wouldn't know them."

Cally let go of his hand and fetched a cloth to wipe his forehead. "Do you feel all right?"

"I feel fine," Blake said. "But I suppose it makes sense to get checked over. Is the other patient nice and quiet?"

"He's been a perfect guest," Gan said. "Apart from not bringing a bottle of wine."

"Let's put him back in the cellar, then," Blake said. "Cally, let's stay here and run some tests on me just to make sure. Gan and Jenna--no, sorry, Gan and Vila--bundle Travis back to the cell. Jenna, what do you think about Standard by Eight to Murgenau? Avon, sod off."

16.  
Avon nearly tripped over the mass of clothing and grooming articles dumped in front of his cabin door. He had to admit the justice of it--two could play at unilateral decision-making, after all.

The top layer of clothes had boot-prints where they had been walked over, so he put them in the laundry chute. The rest could be brushed off and re-hung in the closet. He went down the corridor to put his sponge bag in the bathroom.

A few hours later, he ran into Blake, who was immersed in a bathtub, scrubbing himself with an energy that suggested Lady Macbeth.

At first Avon sat down on the rim of the tub, as he had often done before while Blake was bathing, but it felt awkward now, so he sat down, fully clothed, in the next bathtub, which felt awkward but in a different way.

"You'd no right," Blake said, "No right in the world. Were you jealous--you say you want it over, but you can't stand the thought of the victory being mine?"

"No!" Avon said. "I can't stand the thought of you dying there, where I couldn't protect you, and I can't stand the thought of watching you die. With the result that you simply have to survive."

"There's a galaxy full of people whose needs matter a damn sight more than what you want. I'm not a child, I don't need your protection. I need your respect. I need you to agree with me about what our objectives are and what to do. Lead, follow, or get out of the way."

"No," said Avon.

17.  
For the first time on this trip, Travis was on the flight deck. One wrist and the counterpart for his prosthetic arm were cuffed to a chain around his waist, and he wore leg irons. Jenna stood behind the flight deck sofa, holding a pararifle to the back of Travis' head. All in all, he didn't offer much of a threat to the crew.

"Blake, now that he's vacated your premises, can we kill him now?" Avon asked, not really expecting an answer. {{I knew you couldn't kill him, I knew it}} said the glance he cut over at Blake.

"You know nothing," Blake said. "*Nothing*." Then he turned his attention to the rest of the crew. "A quick death is more than he deserves. I'm not feeling particularly merciful," Blake said. "We've still got the coordinates for the meeting. Let's fly back to 1-C. We'll teleport him just as he is now. Cally, you go with him to retrieve the bracelet, we'll stand by so you can come right back."

"They'll kill me," Travis said.

"I expect they would," Vila said. "Either 'cos they think you're still Blake or because they know you're you but you stuffed up."

"Many a young man's downfall comes from choosing bad companions," Blake said. "That's not my lookout, is it?"

No one said anything.

"Oh, and in case there's an accident, Cally..." Blake said.

"Dangerous place, Space," Vila chimed in.

"...make sure it doesn't happen to you."


End file.
